Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘Intermezzo’

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Sally Rooney is a writer people talk about. Since her first novel, “Conversations With Friends,” was published in 2017, Rooney has been hailed as a defining voice of the millennial generation because of her ability to capture the particular angst and confusion of young love, friendship and coming-of-age in our fraught digital era.

“Intermezzo,” her fourth and latest novel, centers on two brothers separated by 10 years and periods of estrangement, who are grieving the recent death of their father. Peter Koubek is a 32-year-old lawyer with a younger girlfriend, Naomi, and an unextinguished flame for his ex, Sylvia; his brother, Ivan, is a 22-year-old chess prodigy who falls into a relationship with a 36-year-old divorcée, Margaret.

In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib, Sadie Stein and Dave Kim. They also discuss comments and questions from readers. If you’ve read “Intermezzo” and want to join the conversation, head on over to our main discussion space. We’ll get you started with a few thoughts from the episode:

Dave Kim: “I didn’t think I would like it. … I’m a little bit allergic to sentimentality and anything that resembles a kind of romantic love triangle. I find those narratives to be low stakes and I don’t find myself moved by them at all, so I tend to gravitate toward other books. But this — despite my tastes, I think, I let those sappy, sentimental aspects of it sink in and I felt myself very much moved by the characters and the situation.”

MJ Franklin: “I’m a Sally Rooney defender because I think she’s saddled with so much, with the title that she has as the ‘first great millennial novelist.’ I think a lot of times when people approach her books, they’re not just talking about the work itself, but they’re talking about their anxieties of a generation at large. There’s a lot of big picture answering that Sally Rooney is doing that others don’t have to do. And I think when talking about her books themselves, I generally really, really like them. They’re smart, there’s a charm and a complication to them that feels so rich. That said, ‘Intermezzo’ — for me, this book did not work.”

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].